Page 11 of One Last Time

It shouldn’t be weird, but it probably was—a little. Objectively speaking. You know, since I’d kissed him at Thanksgiving last year and he’d made it obvious he was crushing on me.

But we were past that. We were friends. Levi knew that.

Noah knew it, too—which was equally important.

Definitely not weird, however, was me calling him up to rant about the new development that my dad wasdatingnow.

“I can see why it’s strange for you,” Levi said, oh so diplomatically. I rolled my eyes. “But come on, Elle, you can’t be that surprised, right?”

“I’m just…”

Surprised he didn’t tell me before. Surprised this wasn’t his first date with Linda. Surprised he was datingat all.

“It’s not bad that I feel weird about it, right?”

“I guess not. But hey, Elle, try to see this as a good thing, you know? She obviously makes your dad happy or he wouldn’t have mentioned her. And with you heading off to college next year, maybe it’s not such a bad thing if he’s got someone else around.”

The words sent a shock through me, my brain juddering to a stop for a split second.

Someone else around?

I suddenly had images of this mystery woman cooking dinner in our house, sorting out Brad’s muddy laundry after soccer practice on a rainy afternoon, sitting on our sofa and watching movies, eating dinner at our kitchen table….

I could picture her with Dad and my brother, but it was hard to place me in that image. Off at college—wherever that was—and coming back home for the holidays to some new family I didn’t recognize.

I didn’t want to feel weird about it, but Idid.

Levi could tell immediately he’d said something wrong, and he ran his hand awkwardly back and forth through his short brown curls. He changed tack: “But, you know, maybe it’s not even gonna work out anyway. And your dad must be taking things really slow if he’s only just mentioning her. It could be months before he even considers having her over to meet you and Brad.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

He tried again, putting on a bright smile. “How did it go earlier with the Flynn clan? Did you guys have a nice time?”

“Not really,” I mumbled. “They’re selling the beach house. We’re all heading there tomorrow to start clearing the place out.”

Levi groaned, head tipping back and his hand lowering the phone slightly. “Elle, I’m gonna go before I screw up any more and bring up something else that’s gonna upset you, okay? I’m gonna hang up and send you a couple of memes instead.”

I managed a laugh at that. “Thanks, Levi.”

After we hung up and he, as promised, messaged me with a couple of screenshots of memes he’d saved to his phone, I wondered if I should’ve told him about my college dilemma.

No, I decided quickly. I didn’t want Levi getting roped into that mess, too. He’d been tangled up in more than enough of my drama when it came to the Flynn brothers, I figured.

This was something I had to deal with by myself. And time was ticking.

Chapter Five

In the year that we’d been together, riding on the back of Noah’s motorcycle had become a much less terrifying experience. I wasn’t even shaking when I climbed off outside the beach house, but Ididhave some serious helmet hair going on.

I was convinced that those movies and commercials of women pulling off helmets and shaking out their flawless, bouncy, shiny hair was a total myth.

Noah smirked at me as I angled my head in the view of my cell phone camera, patting down my frizzy hair before giving up and pulling it all back into a ponytail.

He took off his own helmet. His hair was, predictably enough, shiny and flawless.

“Don’t worry,” he told me, “you still look cute.”

“Wish I could say the same for you.”